To: The Senate From: Kris Stewart, Chair, IIT Committee Date: 9 May 2006 Re: IIT subcommittee to address academy freedom and border firewall (Information) Information Item: The University Senate IIT (Instructional & Information Technology) Committee wishes to present to the Senate the following information item. The IIT Committee will form a subcommittee of 5 representative members (Kris Stewart, IIT Committee Chair and Computer Science Professor; John Ross, Academic Affairs IT Coordinator; Jim Julius, Instructional Technology Services Asst. Director; Tom Impelluso, Engineering Professor; and Member to be named by the University Senate Academic Freedom Committee, to make recommendations that establish the proper relationship between academic freedom and IT security. Charge to Subcommittee: Classification of campus users: * Inside firewall (restricted access to/from off-campus network services) * Outside firewall (no restrictions to/from off-campus network services) How should this classification be determined? What type of information is needed for the request? What approval is needed? Is this different for faculty / staff / student / administrator? Rationale: Need to balance the computer network security and related fiduciary issues with the core mission (to provide well-balanced, high quality education for undergraduate and graduate students and to contribute to knowledge and the solution of problems through excellence and distinction in teaching, research, and service) of SDSU. A few years ago a state law was approved and it requires notification of people who have their social security numbers on compromised computers. An example of real dollar costs to SDSU is that shortly after that the campus had a computer hacked (although no evidence the social security numbers were violated) the campus still had to notify all the individuals, which did cost the campus real dollars. It is risks like this, and others that having computer systems “inside the firewall” can help to minimize. The IIT committee is not asking for any Senate action at this time, we just felt it was important to keep the Senate informed, as I will continue to do through next year. For more details on this issue (or our other items) see our annual report or the committee web page at: http://www.stewart.cs.sdsu.edu/USenate/.